Parent-Teacher Conferences
by epicsilverbullet
Summary: So the Titan War got over. They won. The Giant War was a bit of a pain, but in the end, they got through that, too. No biggie. But how in all that is good and holy are all of the couples from the series supposed to survive parent-teacher conference meetings with the teachers of their kids? Oh, dear. What could possibly go wrong?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: It's nice to get viewer-requested stories, because it seems like they care about what you write! Anyways, this is a bunch of future fics about parent-teacher conferences. All pairings included. Jasper first!  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO or HoO  
**

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"Next!"

"Dammit!"

SLAP!

"Ow!"

Jason cursed, rubbing his arm. He glared at his wife. "The hell was that for?" which earned him another slap.

Piper leaned in closer and hissed in his ear, "In case you haven't noticed, this is a _kindergarten_ teacher! You can't just start cursing!"

Jason glared even harder. "A, She made me fail Jetpack Joyride, 2, that wasn't cursing, and D, there aren't any kids around, so who cares?"

Piper glared back at him. "We need to give a good first impression on his teacher so she doesn't think we're idiots!"

"We are!"

"What?!"

SLAP!

"OW!"

"Ahem."

Jason and Piper Grace wheeled around to see Mrs. Suzzane, their son's kindergarten teacher, glaring sternly at them. "The conference will start now," she said, leading them into the room.

"Nice first impression," Jason whispered to Piper, holding the door open for her.

She stuck out her tongue and stomped on his foot. "You're an idiot."

They followed the teacher into the room and sat down in two plastic yellow chairs across from the teacher's desk. The room had light blue walls and four sets of desks clumped together, around five or so desks in each clump. There were wooden bookcases on the far left side of the room, for the kids to hang up their coats and backpacks, and to keep their lunch boxes. The walls of the room were covered with posters that had stuff written on them like, "Wash your hands! Spider man does, too!", and "Math is fun! Dora says so!"

Mrs. Suzzane sighed and pulled out a file. "Robert...Joseph...Grace," she said, with a long pause in between every word. Jason's ADHD was making him squirm, or he would have also noticed the tone of her voice.

"Yes?" Piper said timidly.

The teacher sighed again. "Monday, October the 4th, twelve-thirteen PM. Emily Brooks gets an electric shock."

Jason and Piper stared straight ahead, stifling laughs. "How..." said Jason, "How can you assume Bobby did that?"

She looked at Piper and said, "He told me."

Jason stifled another laugh, while Piper said, "Did he say why?"

"Apparently, Emily was bragging about how her dad was in the military and how his dad wasn't as cool because he wasn't in the military."

_If only she knew, _thought Jason, _That would definitely shut her up__. _Out loud, he said, "So? It's a valid reason. He was provoked, and he acted in self-defense."

Mrs. Suzzane didn't say anything for a while. She then pulled out another piece of paper. "Wednesday, October the 13th, eleven forty-two AM. He asked Dwight Bailey for his bag of Doritos, and Dwight gave it to him."

_That's my charmspeaking boy, _thought Piper. "How is that a bad thing?"

Mrs. Suzzane looked at Piper for a second and then said, "Well...he...might have used force, of threatened him."

Jason glared at her. "Is that a fact?"

"Uh, well..."

"And you were there, unless, you're a bad teacher who doesn't watch over her class. What happened?"

His son's teacher glared at him, and he glared back, "Are you accusing me of being a bad-"

Piper saved the teacher from possibly being struck by lightning. "What my husband _means _to say..." she shot Jason a warning look, "...is we want to know exactly what you saw."

The teacher was silent for a moment, then said, "He tapped Dwight on the shoulder. Pointed to the bag of Doritos. Said something. And Dwight gave it to him."

"So how is that wrong?" Jason demanded. "He asked nicely, and he gave it to him."

Defeated, the teacher sighed and moved on, "Two days ago, three-fifteen PM. Jake Greenberg misses the bus."

Piper and Jason exchanged glances. "Why?" asked Piper.

"He was on the roof."

Jason burst out in laughter, but quickly stopped when he caught the look his wife was giving him. He composed himself, and, with a straight face, said, "What does that have to do with our son?"

Mrs. Suzzane glared at him and said, "Well...we're not sure...but we have reasonable suspicion, because of all the other things that he did."

Jason snorted. "Bull-"

Piper clamped a hand over his mouth and smiled apologetically at the teacher. "Er, yes, we're sorry about all of that. But will you tell us about his grades?"

The teacher pulled out another sheet of paper and took a deep breath. "I've got good news and bad news."

"Good news first," Jason blurted out.

"The good news...is that the bad news is easy to tell you."

Piper looked quizzically at the teacher. "What?"

"Well," she said, "He's failing everything."

Contrary to what Annabeth would have done, Jason and Piper just nodded understandably. They knew what it felt like. "I see," said Jason.

Piper leaned forward. "But," she said, and a wave of sweet-smelling mist washed over the teacher, who's expression turned to confusion, "Wouldn't it be a lot better if you changed all of Bobby's grades to A's? A pluses on everything would be great, right?"

The teacher just stared at Piper and then nodded slowly. "I'll do that."

"Good," said Piper, standing up, "We'll take our leave now. Thank you for being so cooperative!"

The teacher mumbled, "Anytime."

Driving back home, Jason turned to Piper at a red light. "That wasn't very nice. Or even morally correct."

Piper grinned evilly and kissed him on the cheek. "I try."

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**A/N: Love it? Hate it? Review!**


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: I got 12 reviews on the first chapter. 12 REVIEWS! You guys are awesome! **

**The most-requested pairing (after Percabeth, which is last) was Tratie, so here it is! I had a lot of fun with this one!  
**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO. Some adult references.  
**

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"And if I bend over a little more this way, I can touch my-"

"Mr. and Mrs. Stoll?"

CRASH!

"Travis! Those were petunias!"

Travis Stoll smiled sheepishly and got up, dusting off his clothing. He shook hands with his daughter's kindergarten teacher, Mr. Skinner. "Travis Stoll," he said, "And that's my wife, Katie."

Mr. Skinner nodded and gestured towards the door. "Come on in."

After he went in, Katie turned to her husband and hissed, "This is _not_ the time for handstands! And you crushed the vase of flowers that was outside the classroom!"

Travis shrugged and pulled something out of his coat pocket. "Don't worry, babe. I stole some petunia seeds from Home Depot. I'll plant some more at home."

"Don't call me 'babe'! And I thought you were done with stealing!"

"You insult my most powerful qualities," he said, and, as an afterthought, "babe."

He held open the door for his wife and they walked into the room. Mr. Skinner was looking out the window, a thick file in his hands. _Oh, no_, thought Katie when she saw that file. Thick files were never good.

When he saw them come in, Mr. Skinner (who also happened to be the principal of the school) gestured for them to sit down in two wooden chairs opposite his desk. He sat down in his swivel chair and looked at the two.

"Your child is...Rachel Silena Stoll?" he asked them, looking at the full name on the cover of his file.

Travis nodded. "The one and only."

Principal Skinner looked at them. "She has an appropriate last name."

Inside, Travis was thinking, _Yes!_ Outside, he feigned surprise and said, "What do you mean?"

"Well," said Principal Skinner, "A few weeks ago, cookies started disappearing from the cafeteria. And a few days after that, I found _this_ in Rachel's backpack."

He held up a sheet of paper, used as a business card. Scrawled on it with red crayon were the words:

Raccel Sileen Stoll

Choclt Shit Cokys

Travis burst out in laughter, as Katie said, "Rachel Silena Stoll...Chocolate Chip Cookies? What does that mean?"

Principal Skinner opened his mouth, but Travis beat him to it. "She set up a black market for cookies!"

Katie hid a smile. Yep, she definitely was Travis's kid. Especially with the intentional profane misspellings. "What else about her should we know?"

Principal Skinner sighed. "Well, and I don't know how this happened- a few days ago, Mickey Stewart couldn't leave for lunch because he was tied to his chair with poison ivy. And Rachel stayed back, demanding that he give back the cookie he took without giving her payment."

_Definitely my kid also_, Katie thought. "How do you know Rachel did it?"

"When I came back into the room with the janitor, I heard Rachel say 'If you don't give me my money, I'll do it again!'"

Travis hurriedly changed the subject, eager to hear of something his kid stole- did well. "Anything else?"

Principal Skinner skimmed through his files and then pulled out a sheet of paper. "She was sent to the detention room for stealing champagne from the teacher's lounge and spiking my coffee with it."

Katie was startled, but Travis thought, _Just like in the TV show_. He said out loud, "Ay caramba. Rachel definitely will be punished for that, Principal Skinner. But how is she doing with her grades?"

The teacher pulled out a sheet of paper that must have been a report card and said, "Well, she's barely passing. C's in everything, except for a D in Math and a surprising A+ in Science."

That got Katie's attention. "How could she get a A+ in Science only? What were they studying?"

"Botany and plant life."

"Oh," said Katie, "That explains it."

"What?"

"Oh, nothing. She just... has a way with plants. But everything else is a C or a D?"

"I'm afraid so," said Principal Skinner, "And she-"

Something clattered to the floor, and Travis said, "Oh. I think your pen fell- I'll get it for you."

And he reached down to grab the pen, and Katie thought she saw him unzip and re-zip his jacket. But she could have been mistaken.

Travis stood up, gave Principal Skinner his pen back, and shook his hand. "Nice meeting with you, Principal Skinner. My wife and I will definitely have a talk with Rachel-" Katie knew that meant that she would do the talking and Travis would be congratulating Rachel on the things she stole, "-about her grades and those incidents."

Principal Skinner nodded and said, "Thanks for coming. I appreciate the parents who take the time to learn about how their kid's doing in class."

Travis and Katie nodded, and they walked back to the car.

Inside the car, Katie said, "Okay, spill. What did you steal?"

Travis looked mystified. "I didn't-"

"After six years of marriage, that doesn't work on me. I know when you steal something. So what is?"

He smirked. "Prepare to be amazed." And then he took off his coat and shirt.

Much to Katie's annoyance, it made her blush red as a tomato when he did that, like it did when they were teenagers at Camp Half-Blood, and when they- yeah. But something was different this time.

Stuffed in between his stomach and the band of his jeans- was a book.

"What-" Katie began, but Travis took it out, and, with his shirt still off, opened it up, and Katie realized what it was.

She slapped him across the face. "You idiot! That's the _grade book,_ you can't just steal it! And put your shirt back on!"

He grinned at her and said, "Of course I can steal it! We gotta do _something_ about her grades, right? And about me not taking my shirt off- it's not like I haven't done it in front of you in the backseat of a car befo-"

SLAP!

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**A/N: This one was a lot of fun to write. And in case you didn't know, "profane" means "using curse words". REVIEW!**

**-epicsilverbullet  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Errr... Hi, guys!**

***dodges rotten tomatoes***

**So, I'm sorry for not updating in a while, but if you thought that I abandoned this story or whatever, know that I don't abandon stories. One of the things I hate most is authors who just delete their stories or who don't update for months. **

**I know I've been getting requests for the Percabeth chapter, and I wanted to say that I'm doing that one _last_. **

**It was kind of hard to figure out stuff for children of Bellona (because we don't know anything about them) but here's Leyna!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO**

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You look him in the eyes. The clear, blue eyes, the ones filled with kindness, the ones that you loved. The ones that you didn't think loved you back. He rubs the back of his neck in a nervous way and says, "You-I," he gives an exasperated sigh, and says, "I must be going crazy." He leans in closer, and you're sure anticipation is written all over your face. He breathes out the words, "I... I lo-"

"NO. FREAKING. WAY."

With a start, Reyna jumped up and slammed the book shut, glaring at her husband. "What are you doing?" she hissed, feeling her face redden.

Leo waggled his eyebrows up and down in the way that annoyed her because, corny as it sounds, it always made her heart do a little tap dance. "Reyna, is that a romance novel I was seeing you read?"

Before she realized what she was saying, she spat, "You interrupted me at the best part! The teenage heartthrob, Mark, was about to confess his undying love for- oh, no..."

Leo laughed out loud and said, "You-you were reading a romance novel! One of those mega-sappy ones! What was the title, "The Crashing Waves of My Heart"?"

Reyna crossed her arms and glared at him. In an icy tone, she said, "If you were anything more than a dimwitted idiot, you would know that the title is "The _Breaking_ Waves of My Heart." And why should I be ashamed?"

Leo started tap dancing around the hallway outside their son's kindergarten room, not caring how stupid he was looking. "I mean," he said, ignoring her question, "When Piper failed to seduce Jason into sleeping with him, I thought I'd seen everything. When Frank _punched_ a guy, I thought I'd seen everything. And when Annabeth got a math problem wrong, my brain exploded. But this?" he stopped his weird dance and pointed at the book in Reyna's hands. "This _definitely_ takes the cake."

Reyna sighed and got up from her position against the wall. "What do you want?"

Leo raised an eyebrow. "What, I can't talk to my wife anymore?"

When Reyna continued to glare at him, he said, "We're up for the conference."

"Oh," said Reyna, "Well, come one, then." And the pair made their way into their son's classroom.

When Leo first saw the teacher, Mrs. Griggs (when his son told him the teacher's name, he had a disturbing flashback to the post-credits scene of 21 Jump Street) he immediately made sure that his shoes were neatly tied, his hair was smoothed out as best as he could make it, and his shirt and pants were ironed down. Because Mrs. Griggs seemed like the kind of person who would reprimand him for little things like that.

She was an old hag, who was sitting at her desk with a stern look on her face, hands clasped in front of her. She gestured to the two chairs in front of her desk, and Leo sat down next to his wife.

Mrs. Griggs didn't say hello, or even check to make sure she had the right kid. She got right to the point, though. "Your son is a real trouble maker."

Reyna blinked. "Are you sure you know-"

"You," she said, looking at Leo, "Are Leo Valdez?"

Leo nodded, and she scoffed. "Well, then, the principal and I know _exactly_ who your son is."

_Scratch what I said about the post-credit scene in 21 Jump Street_, thought Leo, _That'll never happen to her. She's too much of a b-_

"It would be appreciated," said Reyna, and Leo knew she was pissed, "If you would tell us exactly what happened."

Mrs. Griggs chuckled in a way that said _I'm so much more high and mighty than you ever will be, _and both Leo and Reyna were starting to dislike her even more. "Well, one day at recess, he torched a student's hair on fire."

"What?!" Reyna exclaimed. "How-"

Impressed, Leo said, "How big of a fireball are we talking about here?"

Reyna glared at Leo and said to Mrs. Griggs, "Were there any injuries?"

"Well..." Mrs. Griggs thought, "Actually, there weren't any. But the weird thing was, I thought I saw your son pick the fire off of the other student's head."

Leo feigned surprise. "You mean...he just reached up, swept all of the fire off, and carried it away?"

Reyna internally rolled her eyes, while Mrs. Griggs seemed frazzled. "Well...no...I mean, yes, that's what I saw! But-"

"That isn't possible," said Leo, "So you must have been mistaken."

"Well, I don't-"

Reyna jumped in, saving Mrs. Griggs from having her classroom torched. "Is there anything else?"

Mrs. Griggs glowered at Leo for a second, then said, "Nothing else too serious...got into a few fights over people who said Capture the Flag strategies were unimportant..." Reyna sat back in her chair, satisfied.

Mrs. Griggs looked over more papers in the file that Leo just realized was there. "Oh, yes," she said, "One more thing." She addressed the two demigods and said, "One day, he came to school with a pot of gravy. He stood up on the desk one day during nap time, drank the whole thing, and wore it on his head as a hat the rest of the day."

This would have been at least a _little_ weird to anyone else, but Leo and Reyna suddenly realized what she was talking about. "Did this," asked Reyna, "happen to happen on the day after the Super Bowl?"

Mrs. Griggs looked a little flustered. "Why, yes," she said, "How did you know?"

Leo and Reyna shared a look.

_Flashback_

_"IS IT TOO MUCH TO ASK FOR TOM BRADY TO ACTUALLY THROW A F***ING PASS ONCE IN A WHILE?!"_

_Reyna slapped Leo on the arm and hissed, "David is sleeping! Do you want to wake-"_

_"Mommy?"_

_"Oh, wonderful." She turned to her son and said, "Sweetie? You know that big word daddy just used?"_

_He stared up at his mom. "The one that sounding like tucking?"_

_Reyna glared at Leo before focusing her attention back to David. "Yes, that one. I want you to forget-"_

_"Actually," said Leo, "Just use it in your daily life. It only makes sense, though, if you put it before a noun. So-"_

_Reyna slapped her husband again and said, "Don't listen to Daddy. Never use that word. Now what did you want?"_

_David smiled sweetly up at his parents, but they both knew it was an act. "I might still remember the word, mommy," he said, but Skittles might make me forget. Three packs of them might."_

_Leo and Reyna stared wordlessly at each other. _

_Leo broke the silence. "Did he just- bribe us?"_

_Reyna turned to her son and said, "Alright, fine! You get your three bags of Skittles!"_

_But David grinned, and Leo knew what he was going to say. "Yes!" he groaned, "You can watch "Politically Inept with Homer Simpson", okay? Just don't say anything you hear in class. Especially not four letter words beginning with-"_

_Reyna clamped her hand over his mouth and looked down at her son, "This is only happening once, young man. Only once."_

_End Flashback_

The next day, David had come to school hyped up from watching the Simpsons for two hours, and sugared up from eating three bags of Skittles.

"So..." said Leo, referring to the gravy incident, "...why is that a problem?"

Mrs. Griggs smirked, and Leo decided he'd had enough. He stood up from the chair, towering over Mrs. Griggs, and said, "You want to know how important gravy is? I'll show you."

Reyna put her head in her hands, muttering, "No..." as Leo reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a gravy boat. He put it on his head and marched out of the classroom, followed by his wife and Mrs. Griggs.

When they got outside, they found that the situation was much worse than expected. Of course, it wasn't as bad as a rant on a political talk show that would be broadcast live on national television...but the effect was the same.

Leo was standing on a desk, addressing the three or four dozen parents that were milling about the hallways, waiting for their conferences to start. And he was using Homer Simpson logic.

**(A/N: These are going to be different from the ones on the show, so sorry!)**

"When your wife yells at you for watching "Friends with Benefits" and you think, _Only in America_," he was saying, a gravy boat on his head and one in his left hand, "that's the _gravy!"_ he glared pointedly at his wife, who glared back with an equal intensity.

He continued, "When your country is bored and invades another country that did nothing wrong, _plus_ a couple of other ones... that's the _gravy! _And when your son is yelled at and emotionally hurt at school for something he _didn't do," _ he glared at Mrs. Griggs, who sighed and said, "We get the-"

"Say it with me," said Leo, raising his gravy boat and tossing some out to the crowd, and Reyna suddenly realized that while this looked like an immature, extremely Leo-ish thing to do...there was a purpose. He was merely defending his son, standing up for what he believed was right (even though the whole thing with the fire _was_ David's fault).

Reyna caught a gravy boat, raised it in the air, and chanted along with the rest of the crowd, who were surprisingly not sending Leo to a mental asylum.

"THAT'S THE _GRAVY_!"

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**A/N: Well, that certainly came out weirder and crazier than I expected it.**

**But I _had_ to include the whole gravy scene. And I think this portrays both Leo and Reyna's personalities well.**

**Anyways, REVIEW!**

**-epicsilverbullet**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Um...hi, guys?**

***Dodges knives and pitchforks from angry throng of Percabeth supporters***

**So, I could apologize and all that for not updating...but you wouldn't believe me anyways, so here's the next chapter!**

**I've determined the outline for the rest of this story, and I am kinda sorry to say that HazelxFrank and ThaliaxNico will not make an appearance. No Thalico because...it's just not going to happen. And no FrankxHazel because it would be hard to write. Frank isn't really a stereotypical child of Ares, and his kid wouldn't have the morphing powers. It would be fun to imgine, just hard to write and not realistic.**

**This will be ChrisxClarisse (as suggested by Guest- thank you, whoever you are!), the next one will be RachelxNico (I know this is unlikely, but not as much as Thalico, and, besides, it's fun to write!) and the last chapter will be "The Percabeth Chapter!" Since they have been the most-requested couple in this story (and my other ones), I'm saving the best for last, so my readers keep reading.**

**Oh, and I know that it says Chris is one of the undetermined kids in the Hermes cabin (and his parentage was never revealed) but lets just assume for this chapter that Hermes claimed him as his son between TLO and TLH.**

**Anyways, I'm rambling. Review!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO**

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"Mmf- Chris, we should stop."

"What? Hell no! Do you want to take off your pants or should I?"

"Chris- stop being such a guy!"

Chris groaned and got off of his wife, grumbling while throwing on his pants and buttoning up his shirt. "I don't see why this "school" thing is so important!"

Clarisse glared at him, and he shrank back.

There were a lot of things that had changed about Clarisse since the Titan War. She had become less of a warrior-girl and more of a...well, more of a girl. She cared about what clothes she wore. She didn't beat up everyone she saw on sight. Her whole personality changed, and she found she liked it better than how she used to be. However, one thing that hadn't changed- she could still be a fearsome as Annabeth if she tried, as Chris found out a lot.

Five minutes later, they were driving away to their son's school, making sure that they had got a babysitter for him. The meeting started in twelve minutes and the school was fifteen minutes away, but they got there in ten with a little help from Chris's dad, the god of traveling.

They had just reached the door of the classroom when it swung open and they were greeted by their son's teacher, Mr. Smithers. "Hey, Mr. and Mrs. Rodriguez. Come on in," lack of enthusiasm apparent.

Alex had said on many occasions how...interesting his teacher was. Different, even. This was confusing to Chris and Clarisse because...well, they never really had any experience with teachers, both of them being year-rounders at camp. To them, teachers were just...teachers.

Mr. Smithers looked to be an average teacher at first sight. A little shorter than Chris, not too fat, not too skinny.

But then, one would notice the horrors in his room- foot-long wooden mandibles of death with a sharp, black point on the end, an even longer one with numbers printed in ink on the side, undoubtedly used to find kids' heights by skewering them, a rope hanging in front of the whiteboard that looked suspiciously like a noose for extremely small people...

Until Clarisse whispered in his ear that their exaggerating son was stretching the truth a bit- those were pencils, yardsticks, and and a map of the world.

Mr. Smithers, instead of going to his desk, went straight to one of the round tables scattered around the room. While both Chris and Clarisse tried to give a shit about their son's grades and how well he was doing in school (sort of), what they really wanted to see is how well their little mix of schoolyard bully and master thief performed in an ideal environment.

They were not to be disappointed. What with his blonde hair and light black (yes, they thought it was weird, too) eyes, in the right light he could've passed for an Athena kid, and the weird part is, he acted like it, too.

Grades were announced first. "He's barely passing his classes, with a C- average in anything, but that isn't what worries me," he said, not even bothering with further introductions, "What I'm more concerned about is his intra-academic performance."

The pair just stared at him, and Clarisse summed up what they were thinking in the simplest way possible, "Um...what?"

Mr. Smithers rolled his eyes (Chris and Clarisse were really starting to hate him now) and said, "How he does outside of school."

Immediately, Chris went on the defensive, looking for things that were worth stealing as he defended his kid. "But isn't this a school? Where you should only keep track of school-related things?"

"In case you haven't noticed," he said, "That is a school-related thing. If it happens in school, it's school-related."

Sarcasm...dry wit...no sense of humor...nerd-like...definitely a child of Athena.

"What exactly about his...intra-academic performance are you concerned about?" Clarisse asked, leaning forward. They were both eating imaginary tubs of popcorn. The show was about to start!

"You're son..." said Mr. Smithers, sitting back in his chair with a smug grin on his face (that Clarisse just wanted to smack right off), "Is an interesting mix of schoolyard bully and master thief."

Yes, Yes, YES!

Feigning surprise, Chris sat up, "What?"

Mr. Smithers's smug grin got even bigger as he said, "Well, he does have quite a large track record of being in fights."

Realization hit Chris and he frowned. "Can you tell me why he was in those fights?"

It was Mr. Smithers's turn to frown. "That isn't important. What's important is-"

It was Clarisse's turn to speak up. "Screw it. Tell us why he was in those fights?"

After surviving two wars that would decide the fate of the world, Clarisse had changed a lot, as previously mentioned. Her "daughter of Ares" personality was one thing- neither she nor her kid nor her husband had ever gotten into a fight that didn't mean something important. If Alex got into a fight...there was a good reason. Same thing with the stealing- Chris had made sure he cracked down on his son's genetic code and considerably lowered his natural thieving instincts.

At hearing the tone of Clarisse's voice, Mr. Smithers gulped and said, "He punched a kid."

"And..."

"He punched a kid that was bullying another kid, but that doesn't make it any less wrong. He still violated school policy, and this happened on multiple occasions."

Chris shook his head. This is where those nerd-lessons from Malcolm would come in handy. "No," he said, "Do you know what it says in the school academic agreement contract?"

Clarisse, impressed that her husband knew the school's academic agreement contract, looked on as Mr. Smithers smirked again. "Yes," he said, directly quoting said document, "Any student who engages in a physical confrontation with another party on school grounds or during a school activity in which-"

Chris interrupted him. "Skip to the consequences, please."

Mr. Smithers glared at him for a second and said, "Your child has done it three times. Third offense- Any student who is judged by the principal to have committed a third act of fighting shall be immediately expelled and shall-"

Again, Chris made an interruption. "There are a few things wrong about that. First off, that's the middle school section, and our son's in kindergarten, so any argument you make will be invalid. Second- the school is liable to have it's students read and understand that document, assuming it's the correct one. With the advanced wording, plus the fact that you didn't inform him of that, how are you supposed to prevent it?"

Mr. Smithers opened his mouth to say something, but Chris continued, "Later on in the text, it says- 2. The individual called for assistance from adults and/or students, the individual being the kid the bully was beating up. Alex was merely acting in self-defense, coming to the aid of the unfortunate victim."

Mr. Smithers opened and closed his mouth, but couldn't find anything to say.

Clarisse locked eyes with Chris and sent him a telepathic message, which they could do after twenty years of friendship and seven years of message. _Impressive. Did you get Annabeth's help?_

_No,_ he replied, _it was Malcolm. Annabeth scares me. Can I stop talking like a nerd now?_

_Sure. I'm already missing the Chris who didn't act like a nerd._

Mr. Smithers eyed Clarisse for the next round, betting that she'd be easier to one-up.

Ahhh...mortals and their ignorance.

"I mentioned a thieving history," he said, his old smirk back, "which is long. Pencils, pens, dry-erase markers-"

"What did he do with it?" asked Clarisse.

"Again," said Mr. Smithers, leaning forwards like he knew the secrets of the world and he was talking to a toddler, "that isn't important. What-"

Chris crossed his arms and interjected, "Gave 'em to a girl he liked. He was trying to impress her."

Mr. Smithers said, "But that doesn't mean anything! We can't look and say, "the motives justify the ends or the means". When we get down to it, you son is a bully, and a thief. Nothing more, and I don't see him ever being anything more."

At that moment, Clarisse snapped, and Chris was a zeptosecond away from snapping when he saw the Spongebob poster on the wall. This guy liked Spongebob! He didn't deserve to die!

Clarisse was way ahead of him, though. She brought her fist around and would have knocked the teacher flat had Chris not yanked her back by the shoulder at the last possible second. "Nice to meet you!" he called, dragging his wife, kicking and screaming, to the door, "And by "nice to meet you", I mean you can suck my-"

* * *

**A/N: I don't blame you if you think I was on crystal meth while writing this. I honestly don't know where any of it came from, I was just writing it.**

**Anyways, reviews would be greatly appreciated! Oh, and I have a question- do...innapropriate, M-rated stories get more reviews because the readers are perverted? I'm not going to write anything like that, but I just want to know. Like, when I was reading some fics, I saw an M-rated one with 119 words that had over 300 reviews. Are people really that desperate for a Luke/Percy/Hades/Mr. Dare slash?**

**Did I mention you should review?**

**-epicsilverbullet**


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: I hope the update time wasn't too long for you! But it probably was- next time I take more than a week or ten days to update, flood my PM inbox or send angry reviews demanding an update, because that's _seriously_ one of the only ways to stop my procrastination. It's a bad habit of mine****.**

**By the way, did you guys read the Mark of Athena? I'll give it another month before I spoil it for anyone, in case some people didn't read it, but it was freaking awesome! I can't wait for the House of Hades to come out! AAAAAAGGGGGHHHHH!**

**Disclaimer: I don't own PJO**

* * *

Hazel leaned down and shouted into what she _thought_ was her husband's ear, because, even after seven years of marriage, she still wasn't sure. "YOU'RE FREAKING INSANE!"

What she _thought_ to be Frank's head turned around to look at her, perched atop his back, hair blowing in the wind, and grinned. "Thank you."

Ever since the Second Giant War, where Frank had felt like a third wheel with the tension between the two of them and Leo, for some reason he'd been trying to prove himself to everyone. No one knew why, nor did any of them think he had anything to prove (how many shape-shifting demigods do _you_ know?), but it was always amusing to see Frank turn into a dolphin and flirt with the nereids, or turn into a mosquito and buzz around Nico's ear, annoying him, just to prove he could.

Back then, shape-shifting was tiring for Frank because he was relatively new to it; it was like using a muscle, like it was for Percy and Jason with their special abilities. The more you use them, the more tired you get, but every time you use them, they get stronger.

Now, though, Frank could pretty much turn into whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted to, and for however long he wanted. There were some limits, like turning into a dragon and flying for a week, but he could do it for a day. His shape-shifting muscles had grown so strong that they worked extremely well. Exceptionally well, as a matter of fact.

For Hazel, though, they seemed to work a little _too_ well. All of the other demigod friends they'd kept in touch with (which was basically everyone) had ranted and raved about Frank's powers, but he insisted on using them _everywhere_. They seldom used cars, because they'd just hop on the dragon or the abnormally large albatross. It did have some pluses, but there were mostly negatives; probably the most extreme of which had been passed on to their son, Jimmy. They'd discovered (in a relatively painful way) that _he_ had inherited his father's shape-shifting powers-_  
_

"Dragon tales! I love dragon tales, daddy!"

"That's nice, Jimmy."

"I wish I was a dragon!"

"That's nice- Jimmy, what...what are you doing? What's happening?"

"Whenever I breathe, my breath will come out as fire, like- WHOOOOSH!"

"HOLY F- WHERE IS MY POSEIDON INHERITANCE WHEN I NEED IT?"

Another negative- flying through the air precariously balanced on top of a pegasus with no seat belts, being forced to grab onto the white mane that doesn't offer much to grab onto, not knowing if the next second will bring more gut-wrenching fear or instant death.

Hazel didn't know which one she'd prefer.

It was with a rather ungraceful _bump! _that the duo landed in the school- yes, _in _ the school. Not many people know this, but a pegasus has eyesight ten times greater than a cat's at night, and Frank had spotted an open skylight from two miles away, judging his trajectory appropriately.

He immediately shape-shifted back into a human when they got up, noting by the clock on the wall that they were _right_ on time, and, after a short period of hair and clothes straightening, the door opened, and the teacher, a man by the name of Mr. Rock, beckoned them inside.

Mr. Rock was a bad teacher- at least, Jimmy had never said he was a good one, and since Frank's school experiences had been cut short by his arrival at Camp Jupiter, and since Hazel hadn't even _had_ a school experience for over seventy years, they didn't know better, automatically assuming Mr. Rock was a bad teacher.

However, first impression are usually a good indicator of a person, and the first impression they got of Mr. Rock was pretty good.

His room wasn't really that different from any other kindergarten teacher's room, but if one would look closer or get to know his style of teaching better, that assumption would prove to be wrong. For example, snack and lunch time were each ten minutes longer than usual, shaving off half of math class (and if you think about it, math is pointless every year before second grade), show and tell, the dullest thing on earth, was replaced with extra recess, and there was a box of Rice Krispies on his desk, to be handed out to kids as rewards for doing something good.

These were things that didn't put him in the category of "doesn't care about education, just wants the kids to like him", but instead, puts him in the category of "loves kids _and _teaching. If you get one of these, consider yourself lucky."

Hazel and Frank braced themselves for the worst, but Mr. Rock simply smiled, and, (not pulling out a thick manila envelope), said, "Your son is little Jimmy?"

Frank was eyeing the box of Rice Krispies, but Hazel nodded. "Yeah. What...what about him? Anything bad?"

Mr. Rock shook his head. "He's one of my best students! Well behaved, well-liked by his peers. Admittedly, his grades are a bit low, at an average of a B plus, but there's plenty of time for them to improve."

Hazel and Frank (who was now paying attention) looked visibly relieved, but Mr. Rock's smile vanished, and he then leaned forwards in his chair. "But I'm not concerned about anything school related. Weird things have been going on, paranormal activity, if you will, and they all seem to concern Jimmy."

Frank sat forwards eagerly at the mention of Paranormal Activity (one of his favorite movies), but his wife was quite different. No_ one_ insulted Hazel Levesque's children, and she said, sounding like she'd just been offered a free snake, "What happened?"

"Well," said Mr. Rock, now leaning back in his chair, "during recess in the first week of school, one of the kids in my class accidentally kicked a kickball onto the roof of the school. Completely normal, happens a lot around here, what with the the school being only one story high."

Hazel and Frank nodded, not really sure the direction the conversation was going. Frank was mostly disappointed that it didn't seem to be playing out like Paranormal Activity did.

Mr. Rock continued, "I was on recess duty that day, so I went inside the building to get the janitor- it only took thirty seconds. But when I came back outside, your son had the kickball in his hands, giving it back to the boy who kicked it over."

Frank instantly knew what had happened (or, at least, what he thought had happened), but, feigning surprise, said, "what did the kids say?"

"That he turned into a dragon, flew up to the roof, got the ball, and flew back down. I don't know what exactly happened, though."

Frank felt like pumping his fist in the air and screaming, _THAT'S MY BOY!_ but decided against it, opting instead to say, "Well, maybe it just rolled down in the wind, or something? You know how imaginative kids can be."

Mr. Rock shrugged. "Like I said, I don't know. It could have been anything. But there's more." He looked at the two, who nodded, signaling him to go on.

"He cursed a kid."

"WHAT?!"

Mr. Rock put his hands up. "No profanity. Legit, I swear, he cursed a kid."

Hazel sat up straighter in her chair with pride (knowing what he was talking about), and said, "What _exactly_ happened?"

"Well," said Mr. Rock, "they were practicing the letter N. And a small pearl popped up out of the floor, and one of the girls reached down to pick it up. And then, your son told her not to, because if she did, then she'd be cursed to find that the Cheetos in her lunch bag were gone. The girl picked it up anyways, and then opened her lunch bag, and the Cheetos weren't there."

"But," Hazel retaliated, going on the offensive, "maybe the girl didn't even have Cheetos in the first place. Or-"

Mr. Rock held up a hand, and it was then that Frank noticed the striking similarities he had to some people...blonde hair, piercing blue eyes.

The teacher groaned and put his head in his hands. "Do you know how many demigods I have to teach and how many of these incidents I have to cover up?"

Hazel blinked. "What-"

"Oh," he said, putting on a falsetto, "a kid used a banana and two paper clips to make a catapult! Lightning randomly struck my Yankees pennant! An army of skeleton guinea pigs fought an army of owls in the art room!"

Frank was doubled over, trying to stop himself from laughing, while Hazel was trying to get answers. "How do you know about demigods?"

Mr. Rock sighed and sat up. "Don't take it personally," he said, "your kid has been one of the most painless of them all. I'm a son of Apollo, by the way."

"Aren't they all surfer boys or dumb blondes?" That was Frank.

Surprisingly, Mr. Rock wasn't too offended. "Oh, yeah," he said, "but not necessarily _all_ of them. My wife would agree- like, for example...what about Taylor Swift?"

Frank nodded. "Yeah, she isn't that hard to look at, or a dumb blonde. Brie Larson wouldn't happen to be a daughter of Apollo, too, now would she?"

"She is. She's pretty fine, too."

"What about-"

"BOYS!"

Hazel wasn't too fond of the idea of two married men swapping "hot blonde" stories when they were supposed to be discussing her son. She turned to Mr. Rock. "You're a demigod?"

"Yup."

"You teach other demigods."

"Yup. There's another one like Jimmy- son of two demigods."

That got Frank's attention, because as far as he knew, his was the only generation in which two demigods lived long enough to have kids. He leaned forwards in his seat. "Who is it?"

Just then, they heard a knock on the door, and Mr. Rock looked at his watch. "Ah, that should be them. You probably know who they are."

Hazel and Frank got up from their seat as Mr. Rock opened the door to find-

"Hi- FRANK AND HAZEL, IS THAT YOU?"

* * *

**A/N: Wasn't really sure how to end it, but I hope the twist of Mr. Rock being a demigod and of Jimmy not doing anything bad was a nice changeup for you guys! And who do you think are the two other demigods?**

**Reviews would be greatly appreciated!**


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Notes:** Hey, it's me. After, like, five months...

*wince*

Anyways, sorry for the long update time. That stretch of time was made even longer because I made an executive decision- I had originally written out a different chapter and I planned to use that instead of the Percabeth chapter, which I was planning to do last. But when I wrote out that chapter, I actually really liked it a lot, and I felt like it would be good for like a grand finale.

So the Percabeth chapter is next, and a lot of you guys wanted that, so sure. Before I get questions, this is _not_ a continuation of the Frazel chapter. The continuation of the Frazel chapter will be the chapter after this one, the last chapter of the story.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own PJO

* * *

Percy's phone rang.

It was an alarm ringtone- a special option he'd found out on his phone. It rang like an alarm whenever important calls came in, namely, calls from his mom, Annabeth, and the pizza guy.

He checked the caller ID and groaned. It was his mom. The greater of the three evils.

Annabeth looked at the phone, which was still giving off its annoying alarm sound. "Well?" she asked. "Aren't you going to pick it up?"

Percy gritted his teeth. "I'd rather not."

"Why?"

"Because. Now that I'm married my mom feels like I'm going to leave her forever and never come back. So she's been doing all these things to make herself feel closer to me than she actually is." Normally this would have been fine for him, because he loved his mom and she was always really cool, but she'd been calling and checking up every day, and it was starting to get on his nerves. It sounds weird, but it just was.

Unfortunately, Annabeth had picked up the phone and was talking.

"Hi, Mrs. Jackson! Sally, sure, I can call you that...no, he forgot to pick up the laundry _again_...I know, right? So lazy!...And the taxes, too! I mean...What?...No, we're fine...Oh, sure, no, I didn't want to hold you up. Here."

And she thrust the phone into his hands. "She's going clothes shopping for you," she said, trying not to smile.

Percy sighed. "Unbelievable." And then he put the phone up to his ear.

"Hey, mom."

"Percy!"

"Hi. What's up?"

"Well, I was at the mall a while ago, just buying some clothes and stuff for me, and it just occurred to me- why don't I get something for you? I haven't done that in a while, after all."

"Uh, sure. Sure thing, mom."

"You're going for a conference now, right?"

"Yeah. It's actually starting like right now, so I may have to go-"

"Well, come down to the mall afterwards! It's only a couple blocks away."

"What? Why?"

"To try on the stuff I'm going to buy, of course."

"What? Why would I need to try that stuff out?"

"You know. To see."

"To see what?"

"To see if it fits! If it looks good on you! If it's worth spending money on!"

A pause. Then-

"Mom, it's a shirt, not a date."

She sighed. "Well, then, I'll just buy what I want to buy and you'll have to like it."

Percy hid a smile as the classroom door opened and the teacher beckoned them in. "Okay, mom. Bye."

"Bye, Percy."

He tucked his phone away in his pocket and followed his wife into the classroom.

Their daughter's teacher was old and crabby, exactly the kind of teacher Percy had when he'd first discovered his godly heritage, and not the type he was fond of. She didn't exactly _look_ like Ms. Dodds, but she had the same kind of aura around her, like she hated kids and everything to do with them.

Percy wondered why people who felt like that would ever want to become teachers. Maybe they weren't always like that.

She was giving him all the warning signs, too. She was dressed all in purple, almost _surely_ a sign from the devil himself. And as he walked through the room, he noticed some things- the posters on her wall were warning the kids about washing their hands instead of warning them about the Hulk. Instead of Goldfish or Oreos or something cool for a snack, she had granola bars. And when he checked the schedule on the board (written in boring chalk on the boring chalkboard instead of awesome marker on the awesome whiteboard) there didn't seem to be any nap time.

So concerned was he at the prospect of the avoidance of nap time that it was the first thing he addressed.

"Do the kids get any nap time?" he asked when they were seated and had been properly introduced.

The old hag peered at him over her glasses. "I beg your pardon?"

_Who says that anymore?_

"Nap time," he repeated. "Do they get any? I mean, I thought that kind of thing was standard for kindergarteners these days."

"Idiot," Annabeth hissed, barely audible, out of the corner of her mouth. "There are other things to worry about."

The old hag was still staring at him. "No," she finally answered. "No, there is no nap time. I do not believe in nap time. Why sleep when you could learn?"

Percy stared at her for a second and then shrugged. No nap time, who cares? Grace slept a lot at home. Her teacher could be worse.

The old hag pulled out a thick, large, yellow folder. Another warning sign. Things had just gotten worse.

It was stuffed to the brim with papers and files and cards and a whole bunch of stuff. "In here," she said, "is a record of everything your child has ever done. Of course, I have one of these for every other student, too. Let me show you one that's for one of the other students in my class, shall I?"

She brought out a small, white-colored manila envelope. It was barely an inch thick. For effect, she placed them side-by-side, and his daughter's envelope was about four or fives times more stuffed.

Percy raised an eyebrow. Was this old hag threatening them? Or was it something else?

"What happened?" Annabeth inevitably asked.

The old hag gave a small smile and folded her hands neatly on her desk, as if she'd been anticipating and preparing for that moment.

Almost happily, she said, "Grace gets into trouble everyday, sometimes more than once a day. For the first few weeks, I thought she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, but now..."

"Example?" Annabeth said, not ready to blow up in the teacher's face just yet.

"Well, just yesterday, the sink blew up. Scared me half to death and gave the other kids all heart attacks."

Percy's face flushed red. Her favorite stuffed animal had lost an eye yesterday, and she was sad about that, and _that _was why the sink blew up! It had nothing to do with her being a vandal! It had everything to do with her having emotions!

_Unlike you, you stupid-_

"How do you know it was her?" Annabeth interrupted his thoughts.

The old hag shrugged. "Honestly? I have no concrete evidence." Percy smiled. "But I yelled- I talked to her about how she had to work harder on homework, and then she started crying, and went over to the sink to dry her face, and then boom! So I think you can see that I have reasonable suspicion that she did it. A crafty little troublemaker you've got there."

In some context, Percy supposed that could have been a compliment. In this case, it wasn't. The old hag was basically insulting his daughter, his parenting, putting them all down, and he was letting her do it.

"Also," she continued, "the day before _that_..." she dragged out the word, "during their game of Capture the Flag during gym, she led her whole team on a huge, charging assault against the other team."

Annabeth stared at her. "What?"

"She led a charge in Capture the Flag," the old hag repeated.

"Isn't that...what you're _supposed_ to do in Capture the Flag? Capture the other team's flag?"

The old hag stared back at her. "Well, what if someone had got hurt? That would have been on your daughter's shoulders."

Percy had had enough.

He stood up from his chair, which toppled to the ground behind him. "This whole conference is complete bullshit," he said.

The old hag gazed at him sharply. "There will be none of that in my classroom," she said.

The moisture in the room seemed to get heavier.

"No," said Percy, "there should be none of _you_ around my _daughter_!"

"She's the problem!"

The rain seemed to beat heavier against the windowpane.

"No, you're the problem!"

"You're the problem! I can't have students with bad parenting in my class!"

The water from the rain that had collected on the window burst into the room, bringing with it a torrent of rain and wind. Annabeth put her hand on Percy's sleeve. "Percy," she said gently.

"'What if she hurt someone?'" Percy said in a mocking tone. "Get a life! They're in kindergarten!"

"The gym teacher made a very valid point!" the old hag retorted. "What if she _had_-"

"Oh, shut up with the 'what ifs' already! What if she'd taken the flags and beaten everyone to death with them?"

The water, instead of being absorbed into the carpet, was pooling on the ground and steadily rising. It was already at their ankles.

"What if she took her mom's birth control pills and started popping those?"

Percy was really yelling now, his face bright red. The faucet from the sink suddenly exploded, and water flew everywhere. Of course, Percy didn't get wet, but everyone else was drenched.

Annabeth tugged on her husband's sleeve. "Percy!" she said, louder this time.

He shrugged free of her grasp and jumped up on the desk, jabbing his finger in the old hag's face.

"WHAT IF MONKEYS ON RAINBOWS START FLYING OUT OF MY-"

* * *

**Author's Notes:** Was I on drugs while I wrote that? I was probably on drugs, those are probably what made me write that. And the fact that I took drugs is what's making me forget I ever took drugs.

But whatever. Many great artists produced some of their best work while on drugs, and I'm no different!

Proud as I am of this chapter, the next one, in my opinion, is a lot better, mainly because I had a better idea for more creative content! And the next one is the sequel to the Frazel chapter! Woohoo!

**-epicsilverbullet**


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Notes:** Last chapter, guys! I know, it's sad, but all good things come to an end. At least I saved the best for last- I was considering doing the Percabeth one last, but I made an executive decision to switch the order.

In this chapter, I talk about RachelxNico. Sorry for Thalico fans, but the story is funnier with Rachel in it. Also, I have a whole list of reasons why RachelxNico is generally better to ship than Thalico, but I'm saving that for my next story, a guide I'm planning to make.

I have a shout-out to make. This story was actually a result of a request from a reviewer, an author by the name of "whitedragon2645", without whom this story would not be possible. So from the bottom of my heart, I thank him/her for the request.

On another note, I'm planning to put up my first story on fictionpress by the end of this month, possibly in the next few weeks. My plan for the next two months is to finish up all of my stories on this site except for my House of Hades story. Then I will start the aforementioned "guide" on this site, and a few stories I'm itching to write on fictionpress, so check those out if you're interested. I'll put a notice on my profile when it's up. It would mean a bunch to me.

**Disclaimer:** I don't own PJO or anything else I have made a reference to over the course of this story.

* * *

A shape-shifting Chinese guy whose life depended on a stick, a girl who could make precious and lethal jewels pop out of the ground at her leisure, a girl who could turn her eyes green and predict the future at random times, the son of a guy who lived in a kingdom of skeleton monsters, and a teacher who was a spitting image of a Greek Olympian god all stared at each other.

"Well," Nico said finally, breaking the silence, "this isn't awkward at all."

Hazel's eyes were as wide as demigodly possible. "When the _hell_ did you guys get married?" she shrieked. "How come we didn't know?"

"When the _hell_ did Nico grow past four feet?" was Frank's insight. "And how come we didn't know?"

Rachel stifled a laugh, but Nico scowled. "Yeah, yeah," he muttered, "well, don't shoot the messenger, but I've been over four feet for seventy years."

Mr. Rock sighed and leaned against the door frame. "I thought I'd left the whole demigod drama when I came to teach. But no! Of course not!" He seemed a bit less-than-satisfied, Nico noted, to have royal blood swaggering through his veins.

Nico looked at him weirdly. "What, you don't _like_ being a demigod?"

"Not particularly. I never was fond of evil demons who could spit fire at you and incinerate your balls. But maybe that's just me."

A silence.

Rachel turned to her Roman friends. "We should really get started with our conference, guys. See you."

Hazel waved back at her and Frank nodded at them as he morphed into a dragon, grabbed Hazel, and flew off through the skylight in the ceiling. Her shrieks of terror quickly dissipated as Frank traveled farther away.

Mr. Rock tsk-tsked at the burn marks his transformation left on the walls. "Sooner or later, I'm going to have to answer to someone important."

He led them into his classroom, and the two demigods sat in chairs across from Mr. Rock's desk. The teacher in question slumped into the big wooden chair behind his bureau for a while, staring at them.

"Do you know who my godly parent is?" he finally asked.

Nico shrugged. "No. But I hope to gods it's not mine."

Mr. Rock ignored that jab. "Apollo," he said, "hence my good looks, exceptional musical talent, healing and incantation powers, and modest personality. Not only are we good with medicine, which I've had to use a lot in this class, and archery, which I probably will, we are also the best at manipulating the Mist."

He stared right at Rachel. "The Mist," he repeated, "which I've also had to use a lot in this class."

Rachel sighed. "What did he do?"

"What do you _think _he did?" Mr. Rock retorted. He pointed at Rachel. "_You_ are the Oracle at Delphi," he jerked his thumb at Nico, "and _he_ is the only living child of Hades. Put two and two together!"

Nico was about to laugh, but then he remembered all the coffee he was promised if the conference went well, so he maintained an indifferent expression. "What are you saying?"

"You know _exactly_ what I'm saying! Death prophecies! Prophecies _about_ death! The kids have never been so scared in their lives, and neither have I!"

"What kinds of death prophecies?" Rachel inquired, straight-faced.

Mr. Rock shrugged. "There seems to be new ones every month, or even every two or three weeks. They mostly happen after someone steals the little guy's cookie or something, but one of them has been coming up once or twice every month since they started." He pulled out a post-it from his pocket. "I copied it down one time." He took a deep breath and recited:

_From the past it comes, your soul it breaks,  
The one who chose is the one it takes,  
With a lion's head and a bull's horns,  
Beware to face the wrath of Thorn._

He looked up from the paper. "Mean anything to you guys?"

Rachel thought for a second. "It sounds...it sounds like someone made a choice, or did something, of some sort. And that action was bad for some monster, a monster with a lion's head and a bull's horns. Probably other things in his little fun house, too. A monster called a 'thorn'. It doesn't seem familiar to me, though Percy might have said something about that in the past. Of course, the prophecy doesn't really follow the rules of AABB poems because of the syllable difference, but I guess he's just an amateur." She turned to Nico. "Any other ideas?"

Nico's face was a pale white, even paler than he usually was. "We gotta get out of-"

And then the wall exploded.

A figure stepped into the classroom, and the only thing the adults could make out through the dust and haze from the rubble was that he was tall and muscular. Nico shivered as a serpent's tail flicked out from behind him and the shape of an eagle's wings could be seen on his back, along with the horns of a bull. As the dust cleared, Nico caught sight of a face he'd hoped never to see again.

"Hello, children." The voice of Dr. Thorn, otherwise known as the manticore, seemed horrifyingly calm. He did not, however, seem happy to see them.

Nico, Rachel, and Mr. Rock were already out the door.

"Shit!" Nico said as he ran at full speed through the hallway, pulling Rachel along with him until she'd gotten over her shock and could run on her own. Mr. Rock ran beside them, his tie flapping over his back.

Nico heard a roar from the classroom, and soon after, the heavy footsteps of the beast. "Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, _SHIT_!"

"What the hell-" they rounded a corner "-was that?" Mr. Rock yelled.

"Manticore!" Nico yelled back as they entered the parking lot. He hopped into the front seat of the car, Rachel in shotgun and Mr. Rock in the backseat. "He was my-"

Dr. Thorn burst through the roof of the school and hovered in the air, his eyes glowing red orbs, until they locked onto Nico's car, which was driving out of the parking lot. He gave a cry of frustration and tore after them- on the ground instead of using his wings.

Mr. Rock looked out the back window and yelped as he saw the manticore giving chase. "Faster, faster!" he yelled, pounding on the back of the driver's seat. "Why is this crazy guy chasing us?"

Nico yanked the steering wheel to the right and the car made the sharp turn onto the highway, leaving skid marks on the road. "It was a long time ago," he started, checking the rearview mirror and saw that the manticore was running on all fours towards them, paying no notice to the cars he was tossing to the side and crushing. "Dr. Thorn was pretending to be a teacher to me and my sister, who's dead now, and Percy Jackson saved us and killed him, and now he's super pissed! He must have just reformed from when we killed him, because he still hates my guts!"

Rachel looked in the side view mirror and yelped with surprise. "Nico, he's jumping at the car! Five o' clock!"

Nico cursed and leaned hard left on the steering wheel, swerving around cars as he jumped lanes. The manticore landed in the middle of the highway with a face full of asphalt.

"He has wings, why isn't he flying?" Mr. Rock asked, looking out the back, as the manticore picked himself up and started to give chase again. "Then again, maybe it would be a good thing if mortals _didn't_ see a flying truck that's trying to annihilate us..."

"He was created by Zeus," Rachel explained, looking in the rear view mirror at Mr. Rock. "Zeus wanted to make the ultimate bodyguard- a creature with a serpent's tail, a lion's head, an eagle's body, and the horns of a bull- but the manticore went rogue and ran away. Zeus got mad and tried to hide the fact that the manticore had ever been created, but of course the other Olympians found out. Artemis and her Hunters spent the next few centuries tracking down and capturing all the manticores and bringing them to Mount Olympus, where Zeus could change their bad ways, but Dr. Thorn, instead of being captured, has always been killed because he's too strong, guaranteeing that he'll reform and keep causing havoc in our world!"

"That's nice and all, but what does it have to do with him not being able to fly?" Mr. Rock asked. "Nico, on your left!"

Nico made a sharp right, zipping across lanes and almost colliding with an oil tanker. For one brief, terrifying moment, they were driving on two wheels, but the car righted itself. The manticore came up empty again.

"The Big Three made yet another of their numerous pacts," he said, taking over from Rachel. "They vowed that if the manticore ever reached one of their domains, they'd capture him and take him to Olympus! That's why he can't fly! He knows he'll be captured by Zeus!"

The manticore was getting super mad. Reckless as he was before, he was even angrier now, tossing cars aside and creating magnificent crashes and explosions that would have been great for "Fast and Furious", but were kind of horrible to look at in real life. He'd also sped up his stride and increased his pace, gaining on the speeding demigods, so it was extra hard for Nico to avoid him. He pressed the gas pedal down more and the car zipped up to a hundred miles an hour. The surrounding environment bled together into one multi-colored, magnificent blur.

"So, what, you'll just pitch him into the air?" Mr. Rock asked. "Let Zeus take care of him? Give him a parachute and push him off of a plane?"

"No," Nico shook his head, "we aren't going to give him a parachute."

Rachel looked at the sideview mirror again. "We're running out of time!"

A thought occurred to Nico. "Rachel!"

"What?"

"Where's that place where you almost died?"

"What?"

"That place where you almost fell off a cliff?"

"What- its- why do you need-"

"Just tell me!"

She threw up her hands in frustration. "Next exit! Take 17B...TAKE 17B IT'S COMING UP ON YOUR RIGHT, MY GOD, DO YOU WANT TO DIE?"

Nico cut across three lanes and swerved into the next exit. This time, since there was a ramp leading up to it, they made the turn fully in the air..

The car slammed down into the ground and bounced a bit on its wheels before continuing on normally. The manticore roared with anger and risked a small flight to catch up with the car. Almost immediately, though, he yelled in pain as something seemed to stab right through his wings, probably the dealings of Zeus. In any case, he dropped to the ground, opting to run after them instead.

Nico turned right onto a side street and then left onto a road that ran right through a forest. No other cars were there, just them and the manticore. Trees blocked views from the side from above, and, to a certain extent, straight ahead. The good news in this was that the manticore had no idea where he was going, which could be played to Nico's advantage.

Dr. Thorn seemed to be changing tactics. Instead of a flat-out chase, he was spitting fire to knock down flaming trees in front of them, or he was ripping boulders from the landscape and chucking them at the car. Seeing as the car was traveling at about a hundred-twenty miles an hour, Nico had no problem avoiding these obstacles, but the constant swerving was slowing down his speed.

The manticore was gaining.

"I hope you know what you're doing!" Mr. Rock yelled.

Rachel shook his head. "Let it go, that's never the case!"

A tree fell down right in front of the car. Nico used the trunk as a ramp to get up in the air, but then another tree fell, and some leaves and branches of that one attached themselves, by way of the tree sap, to the windshield of the car. He was now driving blind.

"Damn it!" Nico cursed. "I CAN'T SEE!"

Mr. Rock yelped and collapsed to the floor of the car as a hail of pebbles smashed through the back window. "KICK THE WINDOW OUT WITH YOUR FOOT, ISN'T THAT WHAT THEY DO?"

Nico sighed and buried himself in his seat, then launched his foot at the windshield. The good news was that the glass immediately shattered. The bad news was that, because of the tree sap, it didn't go anywhere, and neither did his foot. Now, he had one foot out the window, tangled up with the tree branches, and one on the ground, working the gas and brake at the same time.

For better or for worse, he had other, more serious problems.

"SHIT!" he winced, "I think I pulled my groin!"

"Get your foot out of there!" Mr. Rock, yelling from the floor of the car, arms covering his head.

And then they were airborne.

"OH, SHIT!"

By some miracle, they'd managed to avoid all the obstacles the manticore had thrown at them when they were flying blind. Unfortunately, they were now plummeting off the cliff, two thousand feet down into a rocky abyss.

Mr. Rock looked out the back window as the manticore gleefully leaped off the cliff after them, forgetting that he couldn't fly. In the blink of an eye, he was gone.

"Holy shit!" said Mr. Rock. "Zeus works fast!"

Rachel yanked at Nico's leg. "It's still stuck!"

Nico's eyes were shut and he was sweating. "I'm trying to get us out of here!"

"How?"

"Shadow-travel!"

"What? Three people? You've never done that before, that's crazy-"

And then they collapsed on the ground, one on top of each other, cartoon style. Mr. Rock hit the grass of Nico and Rachel's front yard first, followed by the man of the house, followed by Rachel. The car miraculously landed away from the three of them and in the pool, sending a wave of water over the demigods. It was a little beat up and smoke was rushing out of it, but it had served them well.

Rachel was the first to move. She rolled off the stack of people and landed on her hands and knees on the ground, panting. "My arm hurts."

Nico groaned and fell off of Mr. Rock with a rather ungraceful _flop_, coughing all the way. He landed on his back on the ground, breathing hard. His hair was burned and was sticking up in random directions. "Yeah, well join the club. At least you don't feel as if you've been castrated. Three times. By a throwing knife. Which was on fire."

Mr. Rock was buried face down in the dirt, his body making an indentation in the ground from the force of two adults slamming down onto him. He shakily raised his left hand and stuck up his middle finger. "Don't talk to _me _about pain," he said, his voice muffled by the ground but still sounding angry. "I'm retiring."

* * *

**Author's Notes:** I hope that made you laugh as much as it made me laugh! Or, at the very least, I hope it made you smile. There, is a smile too much to ask?

Well, that's about it for chapters of this story! I think I said all my thank-yous before, but whatever- thanks to everyone who reviewed, it really meant a lot to me! Even if I didn't reply to most reviews (I know I said I would do that, but I kinda got lazy), I read all of them and took all of them to heart.

Reviews would be greatly appreciated! Tell me how successful this final chapter was!

Peace, love, and Skittles. Oh, yeah.

**-epicsilverbullet**


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